(05-27-2023 12:13 AM)gwelymernans Wrote: (05-26-2023 11:35 PM)JRsec Wrote: (05-26-2023 11:27 PM)gwelymernans Wrote: (05-26-2023 07:30 AM)ballantyneapp Wrote: (05-24-2023 04:15 PM)gwelymernans Wrote: Whether intentional or not, I think it's ESPNs way of telling the SEC that UNC/UVA/KU or even Miami better fulfill their needs as a network (markets), that FSU/Clemson shouldn't be the priority. Almost as little risk of Fox/B1G sniping FSU/Clemson as there is of the ESPN/SEC sniping UW/UO... might as well pocket them for later.
I don't think ESPN has to play 4D chess and talk in code to the SEC through a talking head on a show.
The president of ESPN probably picks up a phone and calls the commissioner of the SEC if they have an opinion to share.
I don't think ESPN's legal team or execs are dumb enough to offer unsolicited advice directly to Sankey or the SEC. They'll pick up and reply if he calls, though.
None of that is needed. All that needs to happen is for the SEC office to request valuations for all ACC schools. They call it due diligence and it happens every year and the Big 10 has its evaluators do the same. They already know who they might be interested in but they run them on all of them for a detail by detail comparison. If something gets serious then ESPN might be asked for a final valuation, or they use an agreed upon third party source and work with their numbers.
They really don't get Spy vs Spy with this stuff. Talks are different. A professor at one school calls a buddy at another and the chats go between two non decision makers. This isn't CIA level skullduggery. It's more like getting your best bud to find out if the girl you want to take out is available for the dance, or she will have to give you a no because she is committed elsewhere. If committed you don't ask and that way no other young lass knows she's second ask. I just always asked the women's PE instructor. She knew everything and was discreet.
BTW it works in reverse just as often. A school may ask the Big 10, SEC, ACC, Big 12 and PAC 10 each for a valuation. No matter which conference they are in they want to know if they are being valued similarly or if there are discrepancies large enough to make note of and find out why. That's due diligence as well.
Of course they have their numbers. Not sure where you got this spy vs spy stuff. A media company posturing thru the press is no different than a University president or a corporate exec or a lawyer posturing thru the press. Maybe it was directed at FSU/Clemson instead (i.e., the mouse says to cool it w/ the tantrum). It's just hard to view Feinbaum as anything other than a mouth piece, so someone fed him something so he'd parrot it.
Spy vs Spy is old Mad Comic book stuff, a joke. That means you are a youngster since you didn't know that. I have nothing to cool. I don't make crap up like some of the bloggers. It's why I'm right when they are dead wrong. Schools and conferences run the numbers. They don't need a go between, or subterfuge to get it done. It's like getting your annual credit report.
None of that means a thing to anyone who counts. But, if an exec at ESPN talks to the Commissioner about moves not instigated by the schools there's the rub. When schools and conferences scope out each other they do it through personal connections, not conference ones. One buddy talks to another and information is exchanged like how much each other may be interested. Then the school works itself free and applies. Now it is between a school which has already announced its intention to leave and the prospective conference. The conference cannot be accused of tortuous interference., the network gives a thumbs up or thumbs down on the individual valuation done by a third party, all under NDA's and voila you have a deal in the works.
The Pual Finebaum's and other talking heads just repeat stuff they are told and most of the time it is disinformation. He wouldn't know, or want to know what ESPN was actually up to. His personal liability would only go way up.
They are all just talking heads handed a cue card or is told something over a cup of coffee in the lunchroom by somebody higher up the food chain and then repeats it. Most time Finebaum cites beat writers and bloggers as if they actually know anything. Unless you are a president, a key member of a legal team, or a commissioner, you don't know anything unless one of them told you.
I've listened to ADs who simply repeated gossip from a blogger and then got that half wrong.
To sum it up if a school desires to leave and they put out feelers through backchannel relationships, find out the interest is reciprocated, they'll have their own valuation run to see if it is feasible, the conference will run one when they are free and ask for an application, then there's oodles of background work done before the application is submitted and a vote held. The whole process usually takes around 2 years, maybe one if it is rushed. Numbers are reviewed by both legal teams, incidentals are worked out, the vote is held, and the presser happens.
And none if it involves a talking head, beat writer, or blogger anywhere. I'll believe Colorado to the Big 12 when it happens. I'm not saying it won't or can't happen, just that so far, I wouldn't call any of the sources credible.
The interesting stuff between USC/UCLA and Oregon/Washington as to whether they were expected or not will never see the light of day. Either the Big 10 takes them or they don't. The saying in realignment is "If it didn't happen, it never existed." The contract thing is the bigger mess. With all the legal teams around it's just hard to grasp how all of that happened.
And things have changed. The way matters were handled in 1991 differed to a degree or two from 2011, and surely varied with OU and UT.
When I read a lot of this stuff, I just shake my head. What is often reported or assumed just isn't real. It doesn't resemble the actual process at all. And having lived as long as I have, I was outside having fun with buddies in San Antonio when JFK was shot in Dallas, and knowing a few things, like those with lots of money at stake can find workarounds for almost anything, including GORs since damages are actual monetary losses, if they have a good enough legal team, enough money to make it happen, and are in a position to mitigate actual losses to zero, they generally get it done. It's the exit fees that will sting. So no, I don't buy the standard message board fare no matter who it comes from.
You have witnessed the Big 10 raid the PAC 12. You have witnessed 7 ACC schools go on record as being upset over distributions (first step in declairing intentions to leave, "we tried"), you have witnessed Texas and Oklahoma leaving the conference everyone said they ran only to head to the SEC which so many said would "NEVER" happen, we've had 30 years of collegiate upheaval, you are witnessing the global markets attack on the U.S. Dollar, living through a bizarre pandemic no matter what your politics were, and witnessing the collapse of OTA media in the wake of technology, and are headed into past Peak Oil, and you think these guys are going to be stopped by anything? It'll be over when it's over, when players are paid, NIL levels the recruiting bias, and the top brands are the ones which are on the tube week after week. And some of you guys think I'm pissed at the Big 10? I'm not, and never have been. Hell, when I was a kid I rooted for Duffy's Spartans while living in Michigan. I am pissed with some lame half assed assumptions and stupid tactics by a few Big 10 posters.
When the dust clears the SEC and Big 10 will be exactly what Jack Swarbrick said they would be, the two spheres around which the rest of college sports revolves. I spoke of the need for a catch all conference well over 2 years ago. It looks like the Big 12 will be it. No matter what I think or say, or Frank. or anyone else, what is happening is going to continue to happen and for many reasons not connected to sports at all, like a huge coming dip in enrollment which has just begun, and inflation as the dollar loses traction as the WRC, and as large state brands clamor for a better position for not only enrollment but financial backing and sports profile for advertising purposes, and for recruits to do it with. And do all of that to outlast all of the other state universities which sprang to life for the GI Bill and Pell Grant money.
We will wind up with 48 to 56 schools in an upper tier modeled after the NFL. I doubt the NCAA which is organized around amateurism has a thing to do with it. Basketball will be next. And those schools will be the premier league for lack of a better descriptor. They will likely carry the Big 10 and SEC logo because it sells rivalry and regionalism and drives interest, but they will not be the conferences they are today. And they will put on the show, and life will go on. Just a condensed targeted model of what we have now. And we won't have a choice other than to not watch.
It's been coming at a gallop since 1983 when OU and UGa won against the NCAA. It just took the networks a decade to figure out how to monetize it effectively. The last 30 years has been product placement for merchandising and the next few years will be about establishing a replacement institution.
Everything else is just BS. And I don't see anything stopping it. When a Swarbrick, ADs, and a few commissioners talk about it, it's not a myth. It's reality. And Finebaum will just be a baldheaded fart in the whirlwind of it all, not worthy of a mention as a footnote in 20 years. If he is used at all he is well paid for it and doesn't care.
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Finebaum Downplays the Value of FSU and Clemson to the SEC
